


An Endless Road

by skyfireflies



Series: The World, Rewound [1]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Crossover, Despair, Fantasy, Flashbacks, Introspection, M/M, Science Fiction, Threesome - M/M/M, Western
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-27
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-14 00:43:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1246354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfireflies/pseuds/skyfireflies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes your fondest memories can be your biggest enemies, especially in a world like this. Jean Kirschstein bears his memories-- his sins-- alone, because there is no one else to hold them up with him. The world has moved on... but Jean wonders if he will ever move on with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Endless Road

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, Andrea, for looking this over and helping me out with all the things I am incredibly rusty on. <3 Also thanks to Saumya, who was very enthusiastic about gunslinger Shingeki boys, too! :D
> 
> Because of you two, this fic happened. I could probably write in this 'verse forever, but I promise not all of the fics will be as dark as this one! ^_^; Also, because there's some terms in here that people won't be familiar with, I'll throw in some definitions to minimize confusion: 
> 
> **ka-** Life-force, consciousness, duty and destiny. Also refers to 'the place where an individual must go', which, in Jean's case, is the Dark Tower.
> 
>  **ka-tet-** A group of people brought together by fate. "One from many", or, in simpler terms, family (whether blood or not.) 
> 
> **The Dark Tower:** The end and beginning of all things. The place where the worlds meet. Jean's destination, in hopes that he can undo all the wrongs he has done once he gets there. 
> 
> **"The world has moved on":** After the fall of Gilead, Jean's home, the world fell into chaos. There are cracks in time and space that are causing pieces of the world to fall apart, to shift and drift into other realities. The miasma Jean experiences, the further he travels from In-World (where Gilead once stood), is a side-effect of this (it affects plants, animals, and people-- those badly affected can suffer severe mutations.) Eventually these distortions will cause the entire world Jean lives in to cease its existence. (On a side-note, In-World once consisted of the Inner Baronies, Gilead itself. Mid-world is further out, mostly farmland and small villages. End-World is the desert and waste-lands, which the Dark Tower rests at the other side of.)
> 
>  **The Touch:** A type of psychic ability. Armin is gifted with the Touch. Those with this ability can read thoughts and project their own thoughts onto other people. They're also gifted with the ability to sense things that aren't on the normal plane of existence. They are also gifted with a mild form of pre-cognition.

You're gone, gone, gone away  
I watched you disappear  
All that's left is the ghost of you.  
Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,  
There's nothing we can do  
Just let me go we'll meet again soon  
Now wait, wait, wait for me  
Please hang around  
I'll see you when I fall asleep  
-”Little Talks”, Of Monsters and Men 

 

-

 

There is a small village on the edge of Mid-World that reminds Jean of a place he’d visited when he was not-quite-a-man, fresh from the Inner Baronies. He’d just earned his guns, the weight of them still a thing of anxiety and nerves instead of a reassurance. 

The similarities are such that they nearly strike Jean dumb for several moments; he is glad, for once, that there’s no one around to see him. The small houses with thatched roofs, the dirt paths and the way that, just as that town in his memory had, this one presides on the precipice of a cliff that drops to dizzying heights. 

The only difference, Jean thinks, is that this village-- where that one had been beautiful and green and alive-- is broken, all browns and dead things, nearly deserted. Jean can taste the dryness of the air, the death on the wind. He wonders, as he approaches, if there’s anyone living in the village at all. 

Ghost towns become more and more frequent, the closer you get to End-World. Nothing can live out here, where the air is thick with something supernatural, poisonous to those not used to it. Jean, however, has spent his life being continually jerked around by all things supernatural, and thus he hardly notices it at all. It is a slight burning in his lungs, in his eyes, but that, Jean thinks, is nothing.

The dirt path that winds through the village has been blown over and worn almost indiscernable from the earth around it. The only sound is the dry blowing of the wind. This doesn’t bother Jean; he is used to the silence, after all these years. 

His boots, patched and worn, do little to protect his feet from the dirt and rocks-- but Jean does not mind that, either. 

On the far edge of the village, there is an old well. When Jean attempts to fish some water out of it, however, he finds that it’s completely dry. With a sigh, he seats himself on the ground, leaning against the cool stone for a rest. 

Closing his eyes, however, means that his thoughts can run away with him. 

In the almost unearthly quiet, all Jean can think of is how things used to be. If he lets himself start to drift, just a little, that’s when the memories come rushing back. 

 

-

 

_“Oi, Jean! You going down to the canyon again? I wanna come with, you know you’re not s’posed to go it alone.” Eren’s voice, as usual, is annoying and far, far too loud for someone who’s supposed to be undercover. Jean, in the process of saddling up his horse, does not even bother to turn around and look at his best friend._

_“If I say no, you’re gonna go get Armin to guilt trip me, aren’t you?” he says, in a tone that makes it more of a statement than a question. He doesn’t have to look to know that Eren’s wearing his best shit-eating grin. The one that Jean simultaneously wants to punch him and kiss him for._

_Eren Jaeger, Jean thinks, is going to be the end of him._

_“You know me so well, ‘partner’,” he says, coming up behind Jean and slinging an arm over his shoulders, loose and playful as always. “Armin’s busy, though. Will be for most of the day, said he’d be back around in time for supper. So let’s go, yeah?”_

_For a brief moment, Jean steels his resolve and prepares himself to say no. Then, as if he senses it, Eren leans in and presses a kiss, sloppy-hot-wet and full of unspoken promise, to the corner of Jean’s mouth. He is always like this, Jean thinks-- full of reckless abandon, boundless energy, and the most infuriating ability to make Jean weak in the knees._

_The sunny smile Eren gives him when Jean gives in is one of those things that Jean will never, ever forget._

 

-

 

Jean knows, just as he knows the days here are short and the nights are long, that he should be going. That he should be moving on, letting his feet continue on their endless mission to who-knows-where. His head tells him to go, to get out of this place that feels like walking in a wasteland of painful memories. 

His body, however, seems to have other ideas. 

Jean finds himself a place to rest in one of the abandoned cottages. There is only one worn down, rotted body in this particular home, and it’s so far gone that the smell of it has probably been worn away for years.

It sits at a small dining table, its skeletal hands still clutching a shining, silver fork. Vaguely, Jean wonders how someone this far out had managed to get their hands on real silver, after the world had moved on-- but respect for the dead didn’t stop him from pinching it carefully from bony fingers, tucking it away soundlessly in his pack. 

You never knew what you could get for it, further on down the road. 

The bed is made of old, dry straw that pokes at Jean in all kinds of uncomfortable places, but it is better than being out in the open, when the air is as thick with miasma as it is out here. Eventually, he gives up on sleep and sits himself in the middle of the floor. He takes his guns apart methodically and cleans them, more out of habit than anything else. It helps, when he can’t sleep, to do something mindless.

The sandalwood grips feel like home in his palms. 

 

-

 

Every day, Jean tells himself he has to leave, he has to carry on. And every day, he stays in the abandoned little village like he’s tied to it, shackled, and wanders through the silent streets like a wraith, a shadow of what once was. 

He wonders, sometimes, if he’s finally gone mad; if the poison in the air and the lack of companionship has finally cracked his fragile sanity and possessed him whole. Everywhere he goes, he sees shadows of dead people; hears the voices, calling to him but always just out of reach. 

He doesn’t sleep much, but when he does, he dreams. He dreams so vividly that sometimes, he’s almost sure they’re real. He dreams of Marco and his freckled skin and his vivid smile, and how he had burned and burned to his death and never, ever made a sound. 

He dreams of Eren, his crooked smile and his stupid jokes, his green eyes shining bright with fire and life, fierce and unrelenting. He dreams of the feeling of Eren’s fingers carding through his hair, of Eren’s lips on his, of their bodies pressed close. Eren’s stupid laugh and his awful temper and the way he loved and hated in equal measure, often fluctuating between one or the other so quickly that Jean had a hard time keeping up. 

He dreams of Armin. Their quiet companionship, the way Jean could sit with him in silence for hours and it was never uncomfortable, because they always knew what the other was thinking. The way Armin always trusted him, even when he had ideas that seemed mad. He dreams of Armin’s gentle hands, so unfit for the guns he carried and yet he carried them resolutely, like they were a burden he was born to shoulder. 

Armin, he thinks, is the one who should have made it. Armin, with his gentle words and his incredible intelligence. Armin, whose ability with the Touch was both creepy and a comfort, when Jean was conflicted about things or filled with self-loathing over the choices he’d had to make. 

He dreams of summers long past, of the three of them, _ka-tet_ , and how they had spent long nights out under the stars, telling stories and speaking of all the things they’d like to do one day, the places they’d like to go. 

Jean wakes, each time, with the hollow feeling of loss deep in his chest, so all-consuming he can’t breathe without choking on it. 

It never gets any easier, no matter how many years pass.

 

-

 

_“Jean,” Armin’s voice is quiet, gentle, but firm in that way that brooks no argument. Jean opens his eyes with a loud groan, stretching; he sits up in his bed and blinks in the darkness, his arm reaching out to find Armin in the darkness, stationed at his bedside like he belongs there._

_There’s nothing but the starlight to help him see in the dark, but that hardly matters; the moment Jean finds Armin’s hand and takes it, Armin has brought it to his lips, is kissing along his knuckles gently. He presses lips to the center of Jean’s palm, and Jean tries very hard to ignore the way his heart is beating loudly in his chest._

_Armin is so different from Eren, but Jean loves him just the same. He is playfully gentle, in that way that suggests a wildness just underneath the surface; he is fierce in his own way, both on the battlefield and here, in private moments, when it is just himself and Jean with no one to pass judgment on them for who they are._

_“...’s just you?” Jean murmurs, when Armin climbs onto the bed and sits low on his waist, his hands planted firmly on Jean’s bare chest. Armin’s eyes are very blue, in the bit of light that shines through the window; they’re open in a way they so rarely are around anyone but Jean and Eren._

_“Eren’ll be here shortly,” is Armin’s whispered reply against Jean’s lips. “His father caught him up. He said to tell you he’s learned a new trick; he thinks you’ll be impressed.”_

_The tiniest of smiles graces Armin’s lips, and Jean covers it up with a kiss that leaves them both breathless. “He’s trying to impress me now? Didn’t know he cared about that.” Jean huffs out a laugh against Armin’s lips, rolling his eyes. Armin shrugs._

_“I don’t think he cares so much about that as he just wants to laugh at you when you squirm,” he says. “But all the same. Don’t tell him I told you, he’ll pull dramatics for days.”_

_Jean makes a face. “Yeah, yeah. Won’t say a word. Wouldn’t want to damage his fragile ego,” he says, which makes the both of them laugh. The thought of Eren’s ego being capable of damaging is absurd; he’s more confident than the both of them combined._

_In the end, Jean ends up impressed anyway. Not that he’d ever tell Eren that out loud._

 

-

 

On the fifth day of his stay in the little ghost village, Jean thinks maybe he really is starting to lose it. He starts to wonder if maybe he’s finally died, somehow, and this is _ka’s_ way of making him relive his past, over and over, to repent for the evils he’s done. Jean wishes so badly he could leave, but there is an acid rain outside so strong that the drops, in the short time he runs out to try and find dry tinder for the fire, leave red blotches on his skin.

He is trapped in the small cottage with no one but the corpse at the table, and sometimes he catches himself about to make conversation with it. The notion makes him laugh; instead, he pulls a deck of old, ratty playing cards from his pack and spends the time playing games with himself, in an effort to keep himself sane.

 _If only they could see me now,_ Jean thinks, _Eren would start laughing and probably never stop, the bastard._

If he focuses hard enough, Jean can almost hear mocking laughter mixed with the sound of pouring, burning rain. 

 

-

 

_The night is quiet, the stars clear and bright, when they bury Armin’s body._

_It is just the two of them; just Jean and Eren, neither one speaking for fear of what the other will say. Jean’s hands are shaking where he grips the shovel, but he digs resolutely._

_Armin must be so cold, after all. Best to get him where it’s warm as soon as possible._

_It had been an accident. Armin wasn’t meant to be here, was meant to be back home behind the walls, working with his father. That’s why when Jean had heard the footsteps, he’d reacted the way any gunslinger would; he had shot first, thinking it was the enemy._

_They were deep in unfriendly territory, after all._

_When Eren had seen the body, he’d nearly screamed. Jean had shut him up, but in the end it would hardly matter. Neither of them would lie to Armin’s father about what had happened, and they both knew it. Neither could live with the guilt of that._

_When they lower Armin’s body down into the hole, that’s when Eren starts to cry._

_It’s strange, because Jean has never seen Eren Jaeger cry before. Once, when they were children, they’d watched a man hang and Eren had looked on with the rapt fascination of someone mentally unbalanced. In all the death they’d seen, not once had Eren shed tears._

_Jean can hardly blame him, now. They are ka-tet, all of them, and the loss of Armin is like the loss of a limb; Jean feels as though he’s floundering, as though he’s missing something vital to his entire being. Just because he’s more stoic about it doesn’t mean it’s hurting him any less than it is Eren._

_“I didn’t mean to,” he murmurs, quietly, his hand reaching to rest on Eren’s shoulder. ‘I’d never mean to hurt either of you’ remains unspoken, hanging in the air, but he knows that Eren hears it regardless._

_There is a quiet sniffle from Eren, who rubs the tears from his eyes, and nods. “I know,” he says, “Damn it, Kirschstein, I know.”_

 

-

 

It is close to a fortnight later, Jean thinks, when the rain finally stops. Time matters little, anymore, and it’s too messed up to tell completely, but he’s fairly certain that a fortnight is accurate. 

The rain stops, but the sun still does not shine. It’s dreary and gray, and everything has a sort of green tinge to it that reminds Jean of his own sick. Jean leaves the little cottage for the first time in days, absolutely famished. The dried meat and stale bread he’d had in his pack had run out two days ago, and Jean’s only company aside from a corpse has been his own protesting stomach.

Even if the air is thick with miasma, it’s still a welcome change from the claustrophobia of the past few days. 

First, he winds his way through the village, to the small clearing just between the last house and a copse of trees too small to be a forest, but thick enough that Jean can’t see through to the other side. He finds himself some twigs and sticks that had survived the acid rain, and carries them back to the cottage. They’re damp now, but they’ll dry out soon enough, and Jean needs a fire for what he wants to do. 

Once he’s gathered himself up enough tinder for a half-decent fire, he ventures a little further into the trees, looking for anything at all he can eat. Plants, berries, anything. His stomach gnaws at him furiously, as though it’s entirely aware of what he’s doing and wants him to hurry it along.

In the end, all he manages to find are some wild onions. They’re slightly rotted and disfigured from the poison in the air, but Jean figures it’s better than nothing, and tucks them away in his pack. He figures he can at least roast them over a fire later, make them a little more edible. Burn out all the poison. 

The walk back to the little cottage he’s appropriated for his own is silent but for his own breathing, slightly raspy from inhaling so much bad air. More than anything he is thirsty, but the water he’s rationed in his canteen is low, and he’s not sure when he’ll be able to find more. He’s grown used to having to wait it out, over the years. Water is something he only indulges in when his body absolutely needs it. 

Jean cannot afford luxuries, after all. Very few can, in a world like this one.

The rest of the day passes in quiet preparation. Jean roasts the bloated, sickly onions and eats them for an early dinner, then settles himself down to try and sew the holes ripped in his old, worn trousers. It is all methodical, all busy-work meant to pass the time until something else comes along. 

In the evening, just before nightfall, Jean goes outside and builds himself a fire. It takes awhile to get the kindling to light, and even longer to stoke the fire into something remotely useful. By the time he is done, Jean is ready to sleep, despite knowing that he can’t. This is a thing that needs to be done. 

He can’t move on until it’s finished.

He fishes the bullet from his pack; it’s a little morbid, probably, but that day all those years ago when he’d killed one of his closest friends… he’d forced himself to dig the bullet out, to keep it with him always as a reminder of his sins. There’s still blood staining the plating; Jean holds it between his fingers like it’s something precious, like his life depends on it. 

_“If any of us live through the war, Jean, it’ll be you. You have to live.”_

Armin’s voice rings out, clear as though he’s standing just next to Jean, like if Jean turns his head, he’ll see Armin there, just as he was back then, his quiet smile and his kind eyes and his unwavering trust. 

Jean does not turn his head. 

They were only boys, back then. Only boys fighting a war too big for them, and now Jean was fighting it alone.

Jean grips the bullet tightly in his hand, so tightly that he wishes it would crush into dust. He shuts his eyes, and steels himself. There is no room, where he’s going, for past regrets and painful memories. The road ahead is dark and Jean is sure he’ll meet his death by the end of it, but Jean has never been the type to lie down and take it; he’s sure Eren and Armin, _ka_ willing, would never fault him for this. For doing what needs to be done. 

Besides, Jean thinks, he’ll probably be greeting them again soon enough.

He tosses the bullet into the fire and watches it burn, his eyes never leaving it, his entire body tense with the effort of holding himself back from reaching into the fire to snatch the thing out. 

And he remembers. 

 

-

 

_The battlefield is more bloody than any Jean has ever seen (and he’s seen quite a lot of them by now, really.) His comrades, falling around him one after another in one final attempt to save the Inner Baronies from destruction. His ka-mates, or what’s left of them after all these years and bloody battles, at his sides until they are, inevitably, struck down._

_Sasha first, though she takes three of their enemy down with her. She dies with a fierce grin of victory on her face, and Jean wishes he could give a moment to grieve her._

_Mikasa falls next, though it takes nearly a dozen arrows to bring her down. She fights through all of it, and Jean hears her roar with anger and frustration as she staggers through and cuts down five men with her knives alone, her gun lost somewhere in the fray. She dies fighting her way to Eren, her eyes open and her mouth parted to call for her brother in a desperate attempt to try and protect him, one last time._

_Jean’s eyes search frantically for Eren in the chaos. There are not many of his comrades left now; Jean counts dozens dead, their bodies mangled and mutilated and already starting to stink with death and decay. He knows, though; knows just as he knows that his shots will always ring true, that Eren is still alive and fighting._

_Jean finds him at the top of the hill that is the stage for this bloody battle. Eren’s clothes are stained with blood, and there is a nasty scratch across his left cheek that drips openly, but Jean is so relieved to see him standing, still fighting and breathing and /living/, that he hardly notices._

_When Eren catches sight of Jean, his eyes light up. He fights his way closer, until they are back to back. Jean’s hands are shaking, but he dutifully ignores it. They are at the top of the hill, surrounded. “Think we can do it?” Eren’s voice calls out, over the cacophony of the dying and the fighting all around them. Jean shakes his head._

_“I don’t,” he says, “But like hell I’m not gonna try.”_

_The battle doesn’t last much longer. At one point, Jean turns around just in time to see Eren, that wild ferocity in his eyes still shining bright, take an arrow to the eye, and then a bullet to his right arm. He does not even flinch, though Jean is sure it must hurt; there is so much blood, and Jean runs to him, watching the way he takes out a target from a range that no one else, not even Jean himself, has ever been able to match._

_Eren’s hands are shaking and coated with slick, hot, wet blood. As Jean reaches his side, he pitches forward, stumbling, his fingers going loose around his gun and letting it fall to the ground. Jean can feel how labored his breathing is, with Eren’s body pressed so close against his chest._

_“Let...go, Jean. I’m fine--” Eren manages, stubborn even now, in the face of death. Jean would laugh, if it weren’t killing him inside._

_“Don’t die on me yet. Pull it together for just a little longer, damn it.” Jean says, managing to keep his voice from shaking too much._

_There is too much blood._

_Eren’s laughter is shaky; he coughs, and blood spatters the front of Jean’s shirt when Eren looks up at him, his good eye unfocused and glassy. The other eye is gone, a mess of blood and fluids massed around the arrow stuck clear through it, and out the other side. Jean wonders at how Eren’s still on his feet at all; wonders if he can even feel Jean’s arms around him, or if he’s too far gone already._

_“We’re going down there,” Jean tells him, as quietly as he can manage, intimate between the two of them. Eren can only nod. “We won’t stop. We won’t accept surrender, no matter what. You understand?”_

_“Might be dying but I’m not stupid, Jean,” Eren grins, painfully. Jean bites back the usual ‘you could have fooled me’ retort, and kisses him once, quickly, on bloody lips instead. Eren looks dazed, and Jean can only hope that he’s beyond pain, that nothing they’re about to do will matter to him anymore._

_“One more time, huh?” he says, as Jean presses the war horn that is his family’s heirloom into Eren’s waiting hands. It takes Eren a moment, but he brings it to his lips, sucks in a shaky breath as deep as he can manage, and blows._

_The sound of it rings out across the battlefield, fills Jean’s ears with a proud, hopeful sound. Then Eren coughs, and the horn drops from his hands and rolls away, down the hill and out of sight. “Damn it,” Eren curses, but Jean’s already got an arm around Eren’s shoulders, is already tugging him off down the hill, back into the battle. He keeps one of his guns, but hands the other to Eren, who laughs wildly, recklessly. The laugh of a man who has nothing left to lose._

_It hurts Jean’s heart to hear it._

_He loses count of how many they kill, after that; everything is a blur, a whirlwind of motion and gunfire and blood, the screams of the dying. All Jean knows is that, at some point, it all stops. At some point, even stubbornness can no longer keep Eren on his feet. He sways, falling limp like a doll. Jean nearly trips over what’s left of a body to catch him, his free hand cradling Eren’s head as he goes to his knees, letting Eren’s head rest in his lap._

_He is pale, his lips are already turning blue. Still, he manages to laugh. Jean reaches, bringing Eren’s hand holding the gun to his chest, in a soldier’s salute as best he can manage. Jean thinks, vaguely, that he is crying-- but he cannot make sense of it, and so he isn’t sure until Eren, still laughing, says isn’t it sweet that Jean Kirschstein is crying for him._

_“Don’t,” Jean manages, feeling like he’s choking on nothing. “Can’t you ever stop laughing? You’re such an idiot, you know that?”_

_That only makes Eren laugh harder, the blood he coughs up staining Jean’s shirt even brighter red. Jean’s fairly certain there’s some of Eren’s blood on his face, but he doesn’t care. “Make sure… you get the horn. Sorry--” he coughs again, this time it sounds like a death rattle-- “I dropped it. Don’t leave it-- promise me? I’d… get it for you, if I could.”_

_Of all the things Eren could possibly be apologizing for in their entire miserable lives, Jean can’t even begin to fathom why he’d bring this particular thing up. He nods anyway, though; he won’t argue with Eren right now, not when it’s the last thing they’ll ever say to each other._

_“I promise,” he says, “Alright? You stubborn bastard, you did well. Wait for me, okay?”_

_Jean can hardly see Eren’s face through his own tears, but he can hear Eren’s laughter, can hear the ‘Always’ Eren manages, his good eye fixated on the sky above them as the last breath leaves his body and finally, finally, he is gone._

_Jean feels it like his soul is being torn from his body; he screams, louder than he has ever screamed in his entire life, and he holds Eren there until his body is cold and there is no trace of life left in him._

_When he staggers from the battlefield, untold hours later, he is so tired and drained that he forgets his final promise to Eren entirely._

 

-

 

The memories are so vivid that Jean can almost smell the death and the decaying bodies, the gunpowder, smoke, and coppery scent of blood. Still, he doesn’t let that stop him; he forces himself to his feet, putting out the fire and packing away the few things he’s brought with him. With renewed purpose, Jean puts one foot in front of the other and continues on his endless trek to find the Tower, to go back to where it all began. 

To find the man that ruined his life, his entire world, and put an end to him, finally. Even if it costs him his own life. Jean would gladly give it, a thousand times over. _Ka,_ he thinks, bitterly, would demand it. 

Jean spares one glance back at the village, once he’s reached the crest of the hill beyond. He lets his eyes rove over it one final time, lets the pang of loss and emptiness wash over him for only a moment, and then he moves on, as he always has.

Alone, with only the sins of his past for company. 

Jean wonders if a thousand deaths would be enough to atone for all of it. He wonders if, when the Judgment comes down on him, when he reaches the Tower, if _ka_ will strike him dead where he stands. 

He wonders if, somewhere, his _ka-tet_ will be waiting to greet him, when he finally meets his end. If he even deserves such a happiness. The small bit of hope left in Jean can’t help but long for it with all his being; it is what keeps his feet moving, day after day, night after night. 

Even if they hate him, Jean thinks, that would be good enough for him. And so, he moves on, just as the world has done all these years since the fall of Gilead. 

 

-

**Author's Note:**

> Comments/kudos much appreciated! :D


End file.
